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Lori Nix | “How Animals Think and Harmonic Stars,” The New York Times

From Jascha Hoffman’s preview for The New York Times:

These black-and-white photographs of satirical dioramas by Lori Nix show the mayhem behind the scenes at an imaginary natural history museum. Many of the scenes reveal back-room deceit, like a half-made papier-mâché mastodon, a T. rex skeleton built from a do-it-yourself kit, and a family of beavers emerging from a crate marked “Product of Mexico.” There is plenty of dark humor, like a bucket of fried chicken left in an avian storage room, and a pack of tigers and lions prowling around the remains of an unlucky custodian. Ms. Nix, who assembled the foam-and-cardboard scenes in the living room of her Brooklyn apartment, was inspired by visits to the American Museum of Natural History. “I come from the Midwest, the land of hunting and fishing, where there is a culture of stuffing your prize game,” she said. As for her favorite exhibits, like the bison and the Alaskan brown bear: “I hope they never update them.”